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She finds strength in her new duties and tasks around the citadel; she is, after all, Capable.
There’s so much to be done now that Joe and the War Boys are gone. Step one is to get the War Pups out of that terrible paint, to try to heal the scars that have already been etched into their skin. There is beauty underneath what they have been carved into - she knows this, she’s seen it first hand. Step two is to scrub the instances of war and pain and hatred from the walls that she has for so long called home, to make it into a real true oasis in this desert world. There’s happiness to be had in stone walls, she just has to work hard to find it.
She finds comfort in her sisters, in seeing them grow in strength and wisdom as the days go by. Cheedo becomes braver, bolder. She stands up for the poor, sickly souls that have been at the mercy of Joe’s greed and ruthlessness for so long, wandering into their aching masses to lend kindness wherever she can. Toast finds her joy in working closely with Furiosa, helping her build a world they can all fit into. And Dag, sweet Dag, carries those seeds with her every day. She is waiting for just the right place to hide them in the soil until rebirth comes bursting from the ground.
Capable is proud of them. She is honored to call them her sisters, even if they are no longer united by the common bond of Immortan Joe.
And if she lowers her guard at night, if she chooses to mourn once they have all fallen asleep and the sun is simply a memory until morning, well...that’s the secret she will carry with her for the rest of her life.
Of all people, Max seems to suspect her the most. The man of little words and rare conversation will look at her with pitying eyes, as if he can see the grief bubbling under her skin. It makes sense; while they have all suffered loss he is the only other to suffer the loss of love. She’s never asked about his wife and child before, but she can pick up enough from his small snatches of conversation to know he mourns them every day.
Is that what is in store for her? Is this ache in her chest a permanent resident, to carry until she, too, is simply a fond memory and a burning body on a pyre?
It is a cool night when she finds herself wandering the halls, a myriad of “what ifs” that will never come true tumbling through her head. The stone is chilled against her bare feet. Slices of moonlight are the only light guiding her path, and soon she finds herself in one of the many garages the war boys used to use to tend to their battle cars.
Soft sounds of metal-on-metal draw her deeper into the cavernous room. Standing before the Battle Rig is Max, tinkering with the engine. He doesn’t notice her. She knows he doesn’t like being startled, so she makes her next few steps intentionally heavy to alert him to her presence.
Max looks up, eyes flickering over her like they always do, as if to double check that she’s not carrying a weapon. “Mm.”
“You can’t sleep either?” Capable asks, perching on a bench to watch him work.
“Don’t. Much,” he replies shortly. He isn’t much for conversation, but she can tell that he tries - for their sake. As a thank you she tries not to force him into it if she doesn’t have to. Instead she watches him tinker, twisting and untwisting the hem of her nightgown in her hand. Her thoughts begin to stray again - to family, to lovers, to missed opportunities.
“Do you think I’m foolish?” she asks, surprised at how child-like she sounds. “We really didn’t know each other very well.”
Max looks over, studying her again. “Nux?”
She nods, chewing her lip. She’s never had a father figure, she was taken from her family far too young to remember who he might have been. She highly doubts Max will want to fill that role for her but perhaps he won’t mind pretending for a bit. “I can’t stop thinking about him. He was genuinely good, his heart was good. All the things he did before, well...he didn’t know, did he? And he took the second chance he got and sacrificed himself for us so we could be free of Joe and Rictus and the rest.” Her eyes are damp, so she tries to furiously blink away the threat of tears. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again without seeing him in my dreams.”
Max is silent for a moment before nodding, muttering the word “normal” and going back to the car. She takes that as an invitation to continue.
“I never loved Joe. I never even admired Joe. The only love I’d ever felt was for my sisters. And then he…” She hangs her head, strands of vivid red hair falling in her face. “If this is love it’s awful, Max. It’s awful and I wish I could never feel it again.”
The tinkering and movement stops. Just as she looks up to see why Max is sitting beside her on the bench.
“Love’s not so bad,” Max says, stumbling over the words. He speaks quickly, thoughts jumbled, like he’s chasing what he wants to say around his head and fighting for each point. “Loss is the hard part. But it gets better.”
She looks over, a few traitor tears slipping down her cheeks. “Does it?”
Max nods, eyes trained forward. “You survive.”
*
Capable has never had much interest in cars. It’s an amazing thing with the world they live in, but she always saw them as cumbersome noisemakers kept to hunt and chase and conquer. Still, she supposes they’re a necessary evil so she dedicates herself to better learning how they work. It’s a bright, vivid day that she finds herself in the hangar, hunched over the engine of a truck that obstinately refuses to start. It’s been out of commission for quite some time so Furiosa has no problem lending it to her, figuring it’s best to let Capable use it for knowledge if it isn’t good for anything else.
She finds her mind wandering again. Had he learned his own car like this, through trial and error as it became his war horse on the road? Had he been taught by the older boys until the inner workings were more reliable and understood than his own body? Would they have had any real time together, or would the frailty of his nature have taken him too soon anyway?
“If this is Valhalla, then I was right to rush to get here.”
Capable groans, letting her head drop to the grill of the truck with a soft “thunk.” It is bad enough that she dreams of him each night, she can do without hearing voices while she’s awake.
“Not much of a greeting for a returned war hero, back from the dead.”
This time she stands. Her spine is too-straight, eyes too-wide, chills covering her skin in the dusty heat of the midafternoon. She holds her breath, slowly turning her head.
He stands like a ghost in the sunlight, somehow managing to look more worse-for-wear than he usually does. There are vivid, livid bruises mottling his pale skin, one in particular covering the entire left side of his chest. He cradles his hand to his chest like an injured animal, and through his unbearably eager smile she can see that one of his teeth has been knocked out.
Oh, he looks beautiful.
Capable takes a step forward, knees threatening to buckle underneath her. “Promise me you aren’t a dream?” she whispers, as if speaking to loud will break the spell.
“I’d be a right terrible dream,” he says, a hazy sort of smile crossing his own face. He’s looking at her like he, too, is worried that he might wake up. “The kind that you drink to forget, I dare say.”
Her feet carry her of their own volition. With little thought to his injuries she throws herself on him, pressing the dryness of his lips to the dryness of her own. “How. How?” is all she can manage.
“Well. Nothing else killed me, so I figured this shouldn’t either. ‘sides, I told you I’d be right behind.” Nux is smiling brighter than the sun, and how could she ever regret loving him?
He is wounded, and he is thirsty, but he still speaks faster than the whir of an engine. “Now I’m only going to say this once ever, but suppose you let up a bit before you break the other arm too?”
She somehow finds a way to laugh and cry, all at once. She is, after all, Capable.